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See the original image at livescience.com

Fire ants play dead ... except for "cranky old ladies"

livescience.com — FTA: "No one has ever reported this before, and it was a big shock to me," said Deby Cassill, an evolutionary biologist at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. "Ants from an attacking colony will come up to inspect them, and they'll be curled up just like a dead ant. Then moments later they uncurl and walk away."

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  • LewP, on 04/14/2008, -6/+1wow...too long to load Rocket man.
    • nahsrocketeer75, on 04/14/2008, -0/+9Fire ants must be attacking the LiveScience servers.
      • Shadowgamers, on 04/14/2008, -3/+1"Sir! There's a problem with the line!"
        "What is it 'son?"
        "It... It looks like... FIRE ANTS D:"
  • pingster, on 04/14/2008, -15/+3Video or not worth reading
  • rahulbhat007, on 04/14/2008, -14/+0good website with good content
  • aceakm, on 04/14/2008, -2/+19I almost died as a kid because Fire Ants swarmed my entire body when I was at the race track. :-
  • VINLANDER, on 04/14/2008, -1/+2They don't want their insect rights abused!
  • crapmatic, on 04/14/2008, -1/+11I'm convinced that in a million years, the only thing left will be roaches and fire ants. I wonder who will win the final battle for world domination.
    • Murdats, on 04/14/2008, -0/+10the meteor
    • CaptEnder, on 04/14/2008, -2/+3Fire ants...didn't you read "Ender's Game"? They become the buggers!
    • phybere, on 04/14/2008, -5/+9Chuck Norris.
      • cHEM, on 04/14/2008, -1/+1Actually, without the waste and warm habitats provided by Humans, roaches won't actually thrive for that long (nor rats). read "The World Without us" by Alan Weisman.. its an amazing (theoretical) study into what would happen to the world we know if humans were to disappear.
        • rulezgetbent, on 04/14/2008, -0/+5yes, because roaches could not survive until there were humans on the planet.
        • mckinnej, on 04/14/2008, -0/+2Ummm, checked out any of those Amazon rain forest bugs lately? There be tons of cockroaches in there with no humans in sight.
    • StaticThunder, on 04/14/2008, -0/+1In the grim world of crapmatic, there is only war!
  • dazparkour, on 04/14/2008, -0/+22The server is playing dead to avoid being attacked by the digg effect.
    • eviljolly, on 04/14/2008, -0/+7Strange, I walked away and the page loaded.
    • Icelightning, on 04/15/2008, -0/+1Livescience is definitely playing dead, yes. You just have to look away for a minute, and it'll load, like eviljolly said.
  • troon, on 04/14/2008, -4/+2I remember trying to get rid of ants in our kitchen with one of those piezo cooker hob lighter things with the guard off to expose the prongs. A quick zap got the ants, instantly shrivelling them. A nice humane method, I thought - except they got up and walked away a few minutes later as though nothing had happened. Hard as nails...
    • Darthmalt, on 04/14/2008, -0/+3No a hammer usually takes care of them pretty well.
  • amitsavyon, on 04/14/2008, -4/+0:)
  • cerejota, on 04/14/2008, -3/+2But, but, but, Eevolution is just a theory...

    [/sarcam]
    • dazparkour, on 04/14/2008, -1/+1Bush single handedly disproved that theory.

      We are going with Semi-Intelligent Design these days.
  • ithejosh, on 04/14/2008, -3/+1Ants are probably the most interesting insects.
    Although i do fear them, as a kid I had a huge swarm on me.. twice. I HATE FIRE ANTS ***** ATAKSJLASLJ
    /endrant
  • HoldenDapen0r, on 04/14/2008, -0/+1http://www.duggmirror.com/
  • dragis101, on 04/14/2008, -5/+0Man...look at that red menace

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=eBGIQ7ZuuiU

    Now that's some scary *****.
  • daschupa, on 04/14/2008, -0/+0I didn't even know ants could curl.
    • lolben, on 04/14/2008, -0/+0gotta keep their guns big for the queen, duhh
    • Black6x, on 04/15/2008, -0/+0It's an Olympic sport now, don't you know.
  • lionelmandrake, on 04/14/2008, -1/+2And I for one, welcome our new ant overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted RAF officer, I can be useful in helping round up other humans, to toil in their underground sugar caves.
  • RSnote, on 04/14/2008, -0/+3"Cassill and her students also noticed that as the ants age — some live six months to a year — they grow out of the curious behavior. Middle-aged ants tend to flee, while the eldest are aggressive and attack furiously."

    The older we get the angrier we get? If ants mimicked humans, the younger ants would be angriest, the middle-aged ones would flee, and the senior ants would be wondering why they were still working.
  • squelart, on 04/14/2008, -1/+2"evolutionary biologist" -- Can there be any other kind?
    • staffa, on 04/14/2008, -0/+2Yes, there are many kinds and no, none of them are the "opposite" of evolutionary biologist.

      More like Marine biologist etc.
  •  

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